The grunts who bound Gulliver ≫ Battle on the snow in frigid Alaska

1

In the end, war is simply a battle between Objects.

A soldier in the flesh could hold onto his tiny rifle for dear life, but that would mean nothing in the situation.

Even if tens of thousand and hundreds of thousands of soldiers were gathered, and fields of tanks and fighters were prepared, that 50-meter monster would be able to drive off the rabble with ease. Some can continue to move about even after a direct hit from one or two nuclear weapons, so one would start to think it foolish to continue fighting in earnest.

That was why it was better to leave the leading role to the Object.

It was better to press the inconvenient assignment of the leading role to the monster, letting the supporting roles watch over it at leisure.

…Perhaps it was precisely that sort of thinking that made the eight hundred troops crammed in the ‘Base Zone’ — a military base dedicated to maintenance purposes — relaxed their attention despite being on the front lines of the battlefield.

And while it is called a base, what they do is maintain the Object, and then field it, efficiently.

As long as the soldiers protected the super-heavy weapon from attacks while it was being serviced during the brief moments when the Object returned, they would be compensated as “heroes who defended their country without a thought for their own lives.”

Everything was in good hands as long as they had the Object.

The Object that protected them was their money tree. They just had to quietly watch as mobs of enemies came and got themselves driven off. The soldiers can then assert that “this was the accomplishment of our entire Base Zone, and everyone did their best, so everyone should be compensated”, and large sums of hard-earned taxpayer money will be transferred to their bankbook.

In real terms, the war was something the Object went off and did by itself.

As long as it continued to do so, it was something like a safeguard for their own lives and future.

This kind of thinking was exactly why,

the instant when the Object of their army burst with flames and exploded,

the soldiers watching from the maintenance base, the Base Zone, all fell into panic at once.

Yes.

In the end, what is called war in this era is simply a battle between Objects.

What that essentially means is, one must take into account the possibility that the enemy army is also equipped with an Object, and one’s own Object may be defeated.

Even with a white Alaskan blizzard obscuring their vision, the crimson flames and black smoke can be clearly seen.

The girl pilot who they call the “Elite” flew into the air using the ejection system, but there was no one attempting to help the loser who they had no further use for.

But that was not all.

As had been repeated time and again, in the end, what is called war in this era is simply a battle between Objects. Regardless of how many tanks and fighters — the weapons that had been the norm till now — one may line up, the 50-meter monster called the Object would be able to drive off the rabble with ease.

And now, their own Object was destroyed while the enemy Object was free to move about.

What this fact signifies is simple.

It would be a massacre.

A massacre so very much decisive, with devastating strafing attacks scattering blood and bone and entrals about, while nothing remained by despair.

There was no longer any path to take but to escape. Even if the choice of escape is taken now without any hesitation, the situation was such that it could be called a miracle for even one-tenth of this Base Zone, as it was so classified, to survive. Not a single one of them seriously thought to “stay there and hold the line”, that most simplest of military commands.

A hellish game of tag began.

A trifle, played between a monster of over 50 meters in its main body alone, and tiny human beings.